We know Alicia told so much that she couldn't even remember what she said - this is her astute training as a young teen with no sense of social conduct other than Twitter abbreviations. When she was tying up Daniel and he made the "how much did you tell them?" accusation, her eyes rolled and she was questioning herself. Even she didn't know how much - so she chose her most commonly-used behavior: lies and cover-ups, deny deny deny. And minimize.

But this was still all Strand's fault. Not Alicia's. Alicia baited the hook two days earlier and at least 150 sea-miles away. It was Strand who, with knowledge of her misdeeds, put the boat at a standstill, left the bridge, left Whiny-Child Chris 'in charge' of the midwatch and went to sleep with no obvious instructions to Chris. This was all Strand. Including creating the need to send Nick ashore and the need to stop the boat in the first place. All Strand.

As for Alex, all she could have said, from 60-70 sea-miles away, was "They went thataway." She didn't exactly have a sextant and radar to track them. Connor did that himself, and Strand parked himself conveniently to let it happen. I'm hoping that Alex is still around and shows up at some point. Now that the Strand's History Mystery is bared, Alex's awareness of the virus is the next big mystery. I say she was part of the lab or research facility and knew about it, knew when to flee but was a bit too late.

 

I'm coming up with too many questions that always result in the same answer: "The Writers are idiots." More on this point in a moment.

OK, so Strand 'creates' the boarding situation. But why was sending Nick ashore necessary anyway? Luis and Strand both knew Luis was a critical pickup point. Why wasn't Luis in communication with Strand? Why wasn't Luis - obviously Abigail's gunsel and evil-deed-do'er - given a satellite phone? Why didn't he have ship-to-shore radio comms?

We should assume that Luis is not an untrustworthy person, not to Abigail, probably not to Strand (as much as Strand trusts anyone, that is). So why wasn't Luis given communication devices?

If he had them, then there was ZERO NEED for Nick to swim ashore. But there he is. In all his hypothermic splendor. The boat had to stop for hours. Nick had to go ashore. Instructions had to be written to locate the house.

All of that because Luis had no communications.

Uh. "Gee - just call up Abigail and say, 'OK, call Luis. We're in position now. He can load up the zodiac and I'll have the redlights blinking for him to follow. We're two miles off-shore, circling." Why wasn't this done? If Abigail is the one relaying all messages, fine - relay one more! What's the problem?

Are the writers really going to insist that Thomas Abigail needs his beauty rest after midnight, so "no phone calls, no matter what"?!! Gee - the last idiot who did something like that was named Adolf before he retired in the wee hours of June 6, 1944. "Don't wake me until noon, no matter what." Du-uh.

Why didn't Luis have a sat-phone, therefore? He just bribed Mexican officials (probably one patrol boat) so he was given access to money. But not to a sat-phone?!! HUH?!! The only reason for Luis not to have a sat phone is that "I left it at home! Sorry! Walked off and it was still charging!" Yeah well... I guess. Any other reasons?

 

Another question to pose - "Why was Strand in LA at all?"

He was talking to "the Council" about the purchase of the 'other piece of property.' OK. Fair enough.

Except... uh... Phase I is where Luis is. Down at the border, outside of San Ysidro. That's 150 miles south of LA.

There are dozens councils, counties and city gov'ts between LA and Phase II's property location. What LA-area "council" is giving out San Ysidro purchase approvals?

None. This is a writer's fantasy trip. "We need a character based in LA." "We have another character based around the border." No need to do good writing to explain the differences. Such as Strand telling Thomas Abigail, "I'll drive up to San Ysidro early in the morning, go to the council. All done."

Thomas: "What about the boat?"

"Then I'll drive up on LA, get the boat, leave the car in the garage and come back."

Three lines explain it. I mean, it's not like BLOOD IN THE STREETS was devoid of dialog, after all.

The FWTD writers are using same tired ol' ploys as TWD and so many others have before. yawn.